Not quite ‘yummy’ or ‘yum’ I would guess. More like, ‘send this back, it’s not what I ordered’ or ‘Holy shit! Boil some water and grab some salad tongs this hairy man is about to give birth to something!’

Now of course, the reason I got this way is because my definition of yummy is this:

Beer, wine, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, pizza, beer, wine, cookies, beer, wine, avocado (I do eat some healthy things). Anyhow, you get the picture. So here I am on my 42 birthday looking and feeling like a piece of shit because I wasn’t always a bloated man-pig. A few years ago, I was able to shed the belly and actually, for the first time since high school, add some muscle.

This is the night I hurt my knee. Aug. 2011

That lasted for a couple of years or so until I hurt my knee. I never really got back into working out after that. That was 2011. Since then, I’ve put on all that I’d lost and more. And now it isn’t coming off as easily as it used to because now I’m 42 friggin’ years old.

I go to the health club and I see the guys who haven’t sat on their laurels with a hearty beer and can’t help but think, ‘that’s what I’m supposed to look like’. Then the thought occurred to me, ‘is this what women have been dealing with all these years? Is this how we’ve made them feel with our SI Swimsuit issues and our Playboy centerfolds and our beer commercial girls?’

(Oh my, would you look at her!! Very lickable, I mean likable. Anyhow, I digress…)

Where was I? Oh yeah, is our idolatry of these unrealistic female forms creating a self-esteem issue among women in our society? Does that make them feel bad the same way Marky Mark and Jax Teller make me feel bad? Is this why the diet industry is a billion dollar cash cow (no pun intended) with most of the marketing directed toward women? Then I thought, ‘Nah, that’s ridiculous! And where exactly did I put that Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue anyhow?’

In any event, it hurts. It hurts to know how much work and sacrifice it’s going to take to try to get a body like Wahlberg or Jax Teller. (Btw, why is it Jax Teller drinks beer on SOA and still looks like the above picture from Men’s Health magazine and I drink beer while watching SOA and I end up looking like Bobby Munson after they tortured him and broke his jaw?)

It hurts to think about how many Sundays I’m going to have to spend watching football without eating pizza or drinking beer. It really is painful. But there is only one thing to do about it, I guess. Well, there’re a few options actually, one is to be happy with myself, with who I am and how I look. Enjoy life and try to be healthy enough to keep enjoying life for a few more decades or I can bust my ass at the gym, eat more vegetables, say no to more wine more often, dine on lean meat, and look at myself in the mirror and say ‘work harder you dumb asshole!’.

Then there is the third option, the one I’ve been following all my adult life. It’s a combination of the two aforementioned options where I enjoy life and every once in a while look in the mirror, call myself an asshole, and go hit the gym hard for a few weeks until that feeling passes.

Now if I could only figure out which route to take. I think I’ll pour myself a cold one, and flip through a Victoria Secrets catalogue while I think it over. What harm is there in that?

[I have a goal to once again participate in the Men’s Health Urbanathalon in 2015. The journey toward getting there begins now. I plan to blog about my trials and tribulations along the way. When I have that set up, I will let you know. We’ll see if I can actually stick with option two and get this out-of-shape pos working harder and moving again. Time will tell]

You absolutely know that is exactly how many women feel when they look at constant images of young, thin, bikini-clad women. The cellulite or spider veins that magically appear overnight has been magically erased with photoshop. What you felt for just a brief moment is what women feel often thru many stages of their life. You wondered if you had any value based on how you look. Because the media that shows these buff bodied men also insinuates their value. (Although I wouldn’t use the word “yummy” to infer value.) So, what we should constantly be teaching our children, although sometimes it feels futile, to both boys and girls, is that a person’s value is not driven by how they look, or whether they are “yummy” or “lickable”.

I agree wholeheartedly with you. It wasn’t ‘a brief moment’ though. That’s how I feel everyday. Lot of work to do both inside and out to get to that happy place. Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post and for your input.

In my opinion, setting a fitness goal (to complete a race or similar event as you’ve done) is the best way to go about it. Also, taking a picture of what bothers you most about your physical appearance from the most unflattering angle possible and then cropping the rest of yourself out – probably not advisable. That is not how we look at the people we love. We don’t seek out their flaws, zero in and stare. We look at their eyes, their smile, etc. That is how we should also look at ourselves. Talk to yourself in the same manner in which you’d talk to your kids.

I understand what you’re saying. I had a friend once give me the advice, ‘Be kind to yourself’. Good advice, not easy. I’m angry at myself for slipping back to here after all the hard work I put in before. Anger motivates me. Once I cut myself some slack and say ‘hey, you’re okay’, I end up skipping the gym and heading to the store for a bag of Doritos and a bottle of wine. (lovely combination, no?) So, I motivate myself the way I know how, negative talk and anger. Sounds dumb when I put it that way, but it’s what works at the beginning. I do give myself credit for what I do right. I acknowledge a good workout when it’s done, but on the way to that, I have to remember why it is I’m doing what I’m doing. I suppose that’s messed up, but it is what it is. Rebuilding isn’t just on the outside. One more thing to work on.